Introduction
Many things are normalized in the United States such as access to clean water, easily accessible food, and unfortunately wasting food. Food waste affects everyone even if they don’t know it. Whether they are causing the problem or being affected by it. Huge amounts of food are also lost simply because we throw it away. Supermarkets, shops, and households simply throw out 35% of the wasted food.[1] This means that around 1.3 million tons of food can be used to help starving people. This number doesn’t just represent the amount of food lost but also the energy, resources, labor, water, and land wasted in making it. On top of wasting these precious resources, greenhouse emissions are being raised. It has been estimated that if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gasses after the US and China. [4] Addressing food waste has become an increasing concern as climate change has impacted. If we can find ways to make food waste sustainable, we can also help other people and the environment as a side effect. Taking simple steps in your everyday life can make a difference in addressing this issue. Reducing wasted food is a triple win; it benefits the environment, communities, and economy.[3]
What is food waste?
Farms
Food waste is usually described as food that can be used for human consumption but is wasted and lost. This is not only food that consumers don’t finish at restaurants and are thrown out at home, but also raw materials and produce that are lost in the farming stage, harvesting processes, transportation, and storage.[4] Food waste is happening at every stage of the supply chain. At the very beginning from farms, around 17 percent of food is lost. Many farmers grow a surplus to offset any unexpected weather that might cause price shocks and to avoid possible food shortages. Still, they may end up leaving these excess crops to wilt in fields when market prices are not enough to justify a harvest.[2]
Retailers
In food services and retail stores, food is wasted every day. In many stores, consumers are always picking what they think is the freshest. We all do this when picking out fruits or vegetables, if we don’t think that it is fresh then we ignore it. As consumers, we’ve been trained to believe that blemishes or discolorations correspond with lower quality. Many of us do this without even realizing it, scouting what we consider the perfect fruit or vegetable and driving the demand for cosmetic produce. [5] This then leads to food being thrown out as retailers do not want to sell ugly products to lose business. In the restaurant industry, many customers waste food when they can’t finish their meal, they just don’t like eating leftovers or don’t have an option of taking food home. 70 percent of restaurant waste comes from what customers don’t finish (or carry back home). Sometimes this plate waste stems from too-large portion sizes; other times, it’s a consequence of all-you-can-eat buffets.[5] People being encouraged to eat more has led many places in the food industry to oversupply and then they have way too much food made and it is wasted.
Households
And of course, everyday households also produce an abundance of food waste. The largest source of food waste—sitting at 48 percent, a whopping 42.8 million tons of food a year—is right from our homes.[2] On average an American throws out around 257 pounds of food waste a year. There are many reasons for this such as storing food. Many people including me have thrown out food because it was not stored properly. Another reason is because of not planning out correctly. Many people buy way too much food nowadays without considering if they are going to eat out or eat leftovers. Also, when too much food is purchased for the home it can reach its expiration date before it is consumed and it gets thrown out.
Environmental Impacts
Water and Energy wasted.
The impacts of food waste are disastrous as it affects the economy, environment, and society. Food going to waste means land, water, energy, and labor are wasted. Wasted food in the United States consumes 5.9 trillion gallons of fresh water and 664 billion kilowatt-hours of power every year, equivalent to what is consumed by 50 million homes across the country annually.[2] Huge amounts of land are also wasted as around 140 million acres of land are used for food that is lost. Pesticides and fertilizers are also squandered as all the crops that they are used on are ultimately thrown away.
Climate change
Climate change can be directly linked to food waste. Food loss and waste also exacerbate the climate change crisis with its significant greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. Production, transportation, and handling of food generate significant Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions and when food ends up in landfills, it generates methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas. [6] All food that is lost means that everything in the process that was used in creating it was also wasted. EPA estimated that each year, U.S. food loss and waste embodies 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (million MTCO2e) GHG emissions (excluding landfill emissions) – equal to the annual CO2 emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. [6] All of this does not even include how much gas is produced from landfills. According to the EPA, food waste in landfills is responsible for roughly 58% of the methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.[7] Methane is even worse than normal biogas Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere, and it is at least 28 times more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period.[8] Now knowing all this information about how much food waste negatively impacts the world, we can now look at some solutions to solve the problem.
Individual solutions
Household groceries
Food waste reduction should start in everyone’s homes. Small changes in everyone’s habits can impact food waste sustainability. From shopping habits, storing food, and looking for uses for leftovers, everyone can play a part in preventing food waste or making it sustainable. The average family of four spends $1,500 per year on food that does not get eaten.[9]
For most people, reducing food waste can start when shopping. A shopping list can help a lot of people to avoid buying food that would be wasted. Impulse buying is a huge factor when looking at the wanted food. Impulsive purchasing is quite common when shopping in supermarkets and grocery stores. It accounts for up to 62% of supermarket sales and can drive up to 80% of sales in specific product categories.[10] How people store their food also has an impact on whether food is wasted or not. In many households, people end up throwing away rotten food or other food that is not consumable anymore
Reusing in households
Reusing leftovers is an excellent way to minimize food waste. A lot of things that people throw out like fruit stems or bones can be used to make a broth or used in another dish. Any person can go online and find a use for an ingredient that is to be thrown out and use it for something much better. Another way to utilize leftovers and other unusable scraps like eggshells or banana peel is to compost. This will enhance your soil for free and not add more methane to the atmosphere as food is sent to a landfill. Compost, a byproduct of organic waste composting, can be a natural and sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers, enriching the soil with essential nutrients. Composting organic waste away from landfills and open dumping sites, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and prevents contamination. This environmentally friendly practice alleviates issues like fires, odors, and vermin infestations at disposal sites.[11]
Restaurants and businesses
Just like in households, storing food correctly in restaurants is important. Businesses do not want to lose money and don’t want to be serving inedible food. Giving an option to take food home will always help prevent food waste. Restaurant owners can create menus with a lot of flexibility. By offering smaller portions, restaurants can reduce the amount of food that is wasted when customers are unable to finish their meals. Similarly, restaurants can offer half portions or allow customers to order side dishes, rather than full meals, to reduce the amount of food that is wasted.[19] Working together with chefs and workers is important to prevent food waste. Everyone, from inventory managers to chefs to food preparers, dishwashers, and waste haulers, plays a role in preventing food waste. Teamwork is essential to making waste reduction part of the business culture, and that starts with creating a common language that all team members understand. [12] Collaborating with the community can also reduce food waste by giving it to other people. Instead of sending food to the landfill businesses can choose to send it to homeless shelters or just give it out for free to area food banks. There will always be programs locally that could use food to feed people. Another way is to compost it as can be done in a household. For the same reasons as a household, many ingredients can be used for a garden. Fresh fruit and vegetables are bound to attract customers. Leftover foods can also be used for other dishes or even a special daily meal.
Community
Many communities and locals can take the initiative to take food that would be wasted and use it for other purposes. There should be public awareness campaigns in every community on food waste. There are already many examples that we can build off of like “Curb Your Food Waste, ” or “Love Food, Hate Waste.” Awareness alone can decrease food waste in a community. The Love Food, Hate Waste campaign in London demonstrated a 14% reduction in avoidable food waste in the first six months alone.[13] Instead, cities can also force large businesses to find alternatives for food waste. For example, Beavertown, Pennsylvania, implemented a food scrap separation ordinance, requiring companies that produce large amounts of food waste to compost food scraps. Similarly, Philadelphia introduced an ordinance that bans commercial properties from placing grindable food waste in commercial waste bins.[13] Or instead of forcing food waste reduction cities could give incentives to prevent food waste. For example: Milan offers a tax reduction to restaurants, supermarkets, and bars that donate their surplus food. New York City has a public food donation portal to redistribute waste that would otherwise be sent to landfills. Austin has adopted an ordinance preventing restaurants from disposing of food waste in landfills. Restaurants must donate unconsumed food, send scraps to farms, or compost it.
Culture
Everywhere around the world, people have different values. This is especially true for food as every culture has its unique dishes. For example, I am Chinese and something I eat that most people would find weird is pig feet. Most restaurants or butchers worldwide would most likely throw out something like this. Another is of course fried rice that most people have had before. In Chinese households, fried rice often uses leftover white rice. For Lucy Chen, executive chef of Bao Family, “it is easier to do with leftover rice because it has dried out a bit and the grains tend to stick to each other less.”[20] In Latin culture, there is a dish called chicharrón that utilizes pork rinds that are otherwise thrown out. In past times when we didn’t have ways to preserve food like today, Indians would smoke food so that it would not spoil as fast. The smoking process helped to extend the shelf life of the food, making it a valuable resource during long periods of scarcity.[21] This would ensure that in the winter months, people would not starve if there was a lack of food.
Technology
Anaerobic Digestion
Nowadays technology is advancing fast, with it being prominent in most households. This is a new and modern way to fight food waste like we couldn’t in the past. For starters, anaerobic digestion is an amazing way to fight food waste. In anaerobic digestion, food is put into a chamber devoid of oxygen to be eaten by microbes, which then produce biogas. Microorganisms that thrive in an anaerobic environment break down the organic material into an energy-rich biogas primarily composed of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), which can be used to generate electricity or heat or to create liquid fuels. Anaerobic digestion also creates solid and liquid products (digestate) that contain nutrients such as nitrogen. [14]
AI
Now that AI usage is everywhere, why not implement it to help prevent food waste? Many businesses or shops can utilize AI to keep track of food waste or for other purposes. Some examples of how businesses can leverage AI food waste management include their ability to monitor temperature and humidity levels during storage and transportation, track inventory levels to prevent overstocking and optimize transportation routes.[15]
Households can also use AI to keep track of food in the house or even make a shopping list. New technology can help reduce waste in a variety of ways, such as helping plan shopping lists, suggesting recipes based on available ingredients, and tracking food expiration dates. Smart applications can also be utilized in households; smart refrigerators, for instance, offer real-time inventory tracking to help individuals better manage their products and keep track of expiration dates.[15] All of these AI uses can help keep food out of the trash and into more dishes. In the long run, everyone will be able to make a difference and have a sustainable future with food.
Packaging
All food in stores needs to be packaged, from beverages to solids. With many recent inventions for less food waste, packaging has been looked at in different ways. A new type of use-by label for milk bottles that decomposes as the liquid inside goes sour. Labels such as these, capable of telling consumers exactly when fresh produce has gone bad, are being developed by scientists who want to stop food from being prematurely discarded. If successful, these indicators have the potential to reduce the millions of tonnes of valuable food thrown away each year.[23] This is a great idea as there is a lot of food that is thrown out because if people don’t know if it’s still edible then they will most likely throw it out to be safe. More than a fifth of still-edible food is unnecessarily discarded due to date inaccuracies or confusion about what the dates actually mean. [23]
There is also research being done on wireless sensors to see if food is spoiled or not. As food spoils, bacteria growing on it will release carbon dioxide into the container along with ethanol and aromatic molecules. Using a plant-based sensor that can detect changes in the gases given off by food, the labels could then give a much more up-to-the-minute indication of how fresh food is.[23] This is also a great way to see if food is spoiled which is more accurate. Consumers and supermarkets would be able to utilize this to make sure that food stays on the shelf until it is definitely spoiled and could then be used for something else.
Government
Countries taking action
Every government should play a role in ensuring food waste is managed sustainably. A good government should go out of its way to guide people to promote food waste reduction. There are already many countries that act when they see that food waste is a problem. For example, France is a leader when it comes to attacking food waste at the legislative level. In 2016, the country made it illegal for retailers to throw food away and instead compelled them to partner with NGOs to redistribute food to those in need. [16] Another great example is Italy, which has a law in place since 2016, that enables retailers to donate food waste to food banks and charities. The law means that businesses escape sanctions for donating food past its sell-by date, and there are tax incentives available in proportion to the amount of food donated. [16] These are great laws that make a big impact on all the people living there. It is such a shame that there are only six states in the U.S. that prohibit the sending of food waste to landfills – California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont. [16] The EPA has also taken a stand against food waste, on September 16, 2015, the U.S. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) and EPA announced the U.S. 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction goal, the first-ever domestic goal to reduce food loss and waste. [17] Federal Interagency Collaboration to Reduce Food Loss and Waste (FIFLAW), is a program that was launched using government resources to reduce food waste and to produce educating materials on the food waste situation.
Education
Education is the most important part of many people’s lives in their early years. If schools had a mandatory curriculum on food waste, then the importance of the effects of food waste could be shown. Field trips to farms or plants could show how to reduce waste and show how it affects the environment and community. Of course, this extends outside school and parents can have good habits at home to combat food waste.
Lunches in school
A way to decrease food waste is to encourage kids to eat their food by giving them more time. There are plenty of smarter lunchroom strategies that reduce food waste, cutting up whole fruits and veggies, improving meal quality, and scheduling recess before lunch. Cutting up whole fruits and veggies makes them easier for kids to eat and more appealing to eat as well. Meal quality always encourages people to eat at all ages. Training yourself and your staff on proper knife skills and cutting up fruits and veggies can reduce the amount of those fruits/veggies that you are wasting during the prep process. Offering sliced fruits and veggies can increase consumption by 70%![18]
Morals
Currently, in the world, people are starving everywhere. How can this be all right with everyone, especially the government looking at its people? The world produces enough food to feed all of its 8 billion people, yet 733 million people (1 in 11) go hungry every day.[22] As stated earlier food is wasted every day and most people don’t think twice about it as if it’s normal. Almost no progress is being made on stopping world hunger. Over the past decade, progress against hunger has slowed to a troubling degree. The situation is most severe in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which face rising undernourishment, child mortality, and child malnutrition rates, driven by poor diets, economic challenges, and the increasing impact of natural disasters. [22] Even worse than this is the fact that in some countries hunger has increased in the last few years. In 22 other countries, however, hunger has increased since 2016. Five countries with Moderate, Serious, and Alarming rates of hunger have gotten worse since 2000: Fiji, Jordan, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela. This is not okay in any way when one-third of the food made is not even consumed. Ordinary people can only contribute so much, if the government does not care then there will be no way to stop people from stopping and wasting food.
Conclusion
Food waste is a complex issue, yet it’s also one with opportunities for environmental, social, and economic benefits. Answers range in scale from the scope of the individual home to high-level policy changes. Community-driven initiatives, like food rescue and composting, stand as testaments to grassroots possibility. Meanwhile, innovative technologies and sustainable approaches taken up by businesses and restaurants have the potential to point the way toward new norms for industries. Education in schools for students and in businesses for employees builds a culture of resourcefulness and conscious consumption that fosters lifelong habits.
Government plays an important role in the establishment of an enabling framework through legislation, funding, and awareness campaigns. Waste reduction policies, support for anaerobic digestion technology, integration of learning on sustainability in school, and restaurants having new policies would all make a change. Each factor combines with a ripple effect, changing how we think of food and waste and nurturing a culture of sustainability.
Therefore, food waste management is the future. Embracing innovative technologies, improving community initiatives, and bringing in progressive policies create a more resilient food system that contributes to minimizing waste and will go toward a healthy planet and society.
Every step that happens-from the local community to the highest levels of policy decision-making-counts in creating this vision. Food waste is a challenge that we can all overcome together.
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